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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751463">Holding On</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack'>lonerofthepack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>What the Water Gave Me 'verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Hanging, Kidnapping, Torture, Waking up Restrained, Whumptober 2020, shackled</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:14:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>497</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26751463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonerofthepack/pseuds/lonerofthepack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 2020 whumptober prompt Let’s Hang Out Sometime: Waking up restrained | Shackled | Hanging</p><p>A short prelude to 'What the Water Gave Me (I Took and Gladly)'</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>future Newt Scamander/Original Percival Graves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>What the Water Gave Me 'verse [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Holding On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's only very short, but have some selkie!Graves whump.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Percival Graves woke, and he didn't dare move. Just lay still and breathed, and hoped no one was watching him closely enough to tell the difference between waking and sleeping breaths, the little hitch of fear between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waking to the distinct and terrible ache of Loss, coat and magic </span>
  <em>
    <span>taken</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and to the crawling phantom burn of cold iron against his skin, was...not ideal. Waking in shackles never was ideal, but there was a specific sort of threat in this level of preparation, in someone knowing well enough not only to take his coat but in going to the trouble of having cuffs made, cold--not so effective on the finfolk as some of the elder Fair Folk, but plenty all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he lay another moment, and breathed, and catalogued his aches and pains, what he could sense without opening his eyes. If he was dressed still, and he was, if they'd only taken his coat and the coreless wand he carried, they may have missed the lockpick in his seams, or the garrote in his sleeve cuffs--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It proved a mistake to be still, as pain bloomed like an explosion behind his ribs— his eyes flew open, blind with the intangible blow, too sudden to even draw air, though his chest heaved for it--a strangled yelp of a sound from his throat--</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Ah— so good of you to join me, Director. I was beginning to think I had damaged you permanently. I am very pleased to see that is not yet the case."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Imperious was difficult to use against the sort of being Percival Graves was, even if Cruciatus wasn't— he felt it slide greasily against his mind, poisonous snail-slick against his held-away magic, too viscous to get a grip and </span>
  <em>
    <span>make</span>
  </em>
  <span> him stand as his captor wanted though he could feel the demand battering at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The yank of a levitating spell, directed not at his body but at the cuffs, worked just as well to force him up, so hard he gasped as wrists-shoulders-back wrenched with the sudden pressure, scrabbling to get up to his toes to relieve the strain on his wrists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> better," Gellert Grindelwald said. "You are a very difficult man to get a hold of, Mr. Graves, did you know?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Did you try sending a note to my secretary? I'm not sure this is what I'd call auspicious—" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn't scream under Cruciatus — never had, really, it always took him too fast to manage, spasmed through his diaphragm in a way that made proper screaming impossible. He wheezed when it was done, though, gasping and coughing, slumping for only a single careless moment before he had to strain upward again to ease the snarling pain in his shoulders and wrists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think, Mr. Graves, that unless you'd like to hang there a great deal longer, you should choose to be a bit more cooperative."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Not fucking likely</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thought, and gritted his teeth.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you very much!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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